Four Years in Jail for ‘FBI Fantasy’

• Retired U.S. Navy lieutenant commander says he has evidence to prove friend is innocent

By Pat Shannan

Readers of AMERICAN FREE PRESS will remember the series ofarticles run on these pages in 2010-11 concerningthe plight of the Monroe County,Tennessee man who tried to expose fraud in the local court and grand jury system.Instead, United States Navy Lieutenant Commander Walter Fitzpatrick (Ret.) found himselfjailed for trying to perform a citizen’s arrest when the cops wouldn’t enforce their own laws.

According to the man whostarted it all, the following federalattack on him and Darren Huff ofDallas,Georgia, in the small Tenn.town of Madisonville, was just one more Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) provocation, and he nowhas the evidence to prove it.

“Darren Huff is an innocent man in jail for four years for a crime thatnever happened,” said Fitzpatrick.

When interested citizens came to Madisonville on April 20, 2010 for a court hearing on the Fitzpatrick matter,Huff was followed from north Ga.by the FBI, detained at the interstate exit by state and local law enforcement and released afteragreeing to lock his legally-registered rifle and handgunin the toolbox of his pickup truck. No arrest was made and Huff proceeded peacefully into town. The police saw that the supporters were not thereto provoke violence but to stand up for a fellowAmerican who was being wronged by the system.

“The FBI saw it as another invitation to create acrime where none existed,” said Fitzpatrick. Heproved his point with Special Agent Mark VanBalen’s sworn affidavit on April 26.

Even though video shows Huff being determined not to be a security risk by the Tenn. authoritiesand released, six days later Van Balen swore outan affidavit “full of lies and deception,” according to Fitzpatrick, including Huff’s alleged threats to“make arrests on various individuals, that he wasready to die for his rights and that if they didn’t have enough peopleon April 20 to do all they plannedto do that day, that they would beback in one to two weeks.”

Huff has repeatedly denied making any such outrageous statements,and Van Balen even admitsin his affidavit that he never heardanything provocative from Huff.

Van Balen claims that Huff was heard making threats at the traffic stop by a Lt. Don Williams of the DrugTask Force and these were passed on to him.Van Balen makes no claims of personal knowledge as to any lawbreaking by Huff. In fact, courttestimony showed that Huff was under FBI surveillancefrom the night of April 19. Huff was followed when he left home at 4 a.m. and was watched allday. There was never a moment when the FBI didnot know where Huff was during that 24-hour period, and he was never a threatto anyone.

Fitzpatrick told AFP that hehas located and interviewed 31of the 33 people known to havebeen on the scene that morningoutside of the Monroe Countycourthouse. None of the 31 was armed or even saw anyoneother than law enforcementofficers armed. The other twowere a Knoxville news reporterand cameramen who refused to identify themselves when Fitzpatrickasked them to do so.

Not one of the 31 citizens was approached and questionedby any of the 150 law enforcementofficers on the sceneas to whether or not they werearmed. Fitzpatrick has collected statements from all 31. Itwas a peaceful assembly.

“Furthermore,” said Fitzpatrick, “Darren Huff notonly was unarmed the whole time but he spent hismorning at Donna’s Old Town Café across the street and theonly time he briefly set foot on the courthouse property was to take sausage biscuits and coffee to officersstanding there. However, my hearing was beingheld four blocks away at a separate courthouse building unknown to Huff, and he was never there.

“Federal officials not only successfully prosecutedand convicted a U.S. citizen for a thoughtcrime,” added Fitzpatrick, “but the only one withthe thought was the fantasizing FBI agent.”

Huff is more than a year into serving a four-year sentence at the Federal Correctional Institution in Texarkana, Texas. He is stillwaiting for his attorney, Gerald Gulley of Knoxville, to file his appeal. Gulley did not return AFP’s calls.

Fitzpatrick cites a little known FBI programknown as “Operation Vigilant Eagle” that involvessurveillance of veterans who express views criticalof the government. This includes those who discuss a pending revolution on the Internet.

“Anybody in America who stands up for therights of American citizens as outlined by the Constitutionis being targeted and jailed by the federalgovernment,” he said.

This case is significant and chilling because the FBI has prepared it to stifle dissent.

In their slick description of it on their website, they brag that “Huff was sentenced to four years in prison for transporting firearms across state lines with the intent to cause a civil disorder. It was the first time this violation was successfully prosecuted.”

Case Agent Scott Johnson, of the Knoxville FBI Division, stated that “This case is monumental to the FBI because it will set precedent for case law in future domestic terrorism cases throughout the United States.”

Pat Shannan is an AFP contributing editor and the author of several best-selling videos and books.